Rapper Philip Bank$ on Hyphy kids, cops, and growing up Black in Oakland

Oakland rapper Philip Financial institution$ is aware of each nook of Oakland, and seemingly everybody. When he is not within the studio collaborating with different Oakland artists, he is mountaineering at Pacific Pipe, typically with different members of the Black Rock Collective, or speaking to his family and friends about methods to make Oakland higher.

The day The Oaklandside sat down with Financial institution$ on the World Grounds Cafe in Laurel, he was busy studying ‘The riders come out at night’ a e-book written by Darwin BondGraham of The Oaklandside and journalist Ali Winston in regards to the The History of Corruption and Reform of the Oakland Police Department.

From our dialog, it is clear that Financial institution$ cares deeply about his hometown. He’s educated in regards to the function native elected officers and police have performed in the neighborhood and is involved in studying extra in regards to the historical past of the place.

He tapped into that historical past for his debut solo album ‘East Bay Times,” launched in November, on his thirty fifth birthday.

Financial institution$ mentioned the album is the end result of three years of writing and recording work. He had been toying with the thought of ​​doing a solo mission ever since he and the opposite members of the hip-hop trio Trey Coastal went their separate methods.

“The verbal dissemination of data and storytelling is deeply ingrained in me,” mentioned Financial institution$.

It was producer Jeremy Ward, higher often known as Hiright – and member of the rap group Barbaydose – which prompted Financial institution$ to enter the studio two years in the past. Financial institution$ already had numerous songs within the works, he mentioned, “so in 2024, with out me asking or saying something, Hiright went forward and created new beats for these songs.”

The studio periods rapidly turned a City Biz assembly. Financial institution$ recruited rappers Ian Kelly for the music ‘Land of the Oak’ Passwurdz from the hip-hop collective East Bay Great Nationxl for ‘So Superior’, and WeInTheCloud (a member of Barbaydose) for ‘Religious’.

Throughout a latest cellphone interview mentioned arts and culture journalist Pendarvis Harshaw referred to as Financial institution$ “an astute observer.”

“I urged Phil go into journalism due to the way in which he appreciates the historical past of Oakland,” Harshaw mentioned. “On this album he does that by hip-hop.”

Though a number of years aside in age, Harshaw and Financial institution$ each got here of age in the course of the Oakland Hyphy period, a method that dominated the sound and tradition of Bay Space hip-hop within the late ’90s and 2000s.

Throughout the Hyphy period, younger males exuded a bombastic sense of fashion with crisp white T-shirts, saggy denims, gold grills and gorgeous shades. It was a interval that produced a number of the era’s greatest uptempo, bass-heavy music, together with the Bay Space classics “Inform Me When to Go” by E-40 and “Blow the Whistle” by Too $hort.

“We have now deeply overlapping communities in Oakland,” Harshaw mentioned.

With their shared ties to Oakland, a collaboration happened organically. Financial institution$ invited Harshaw to the studio final summer time and performed the songs, certainly one of them titled “Hyphy Youngsters Bought Trauma” – the identical identify as a podcast sequence Harshaw had produced in 2023. The phrase was coined by Rapper Rich Iyala from San Franciscowho used it within the lyrics of a music referred to as ‘Hyphy Youngsters’. In episode 4 of the podcast sequence, Harshaw mentioned that Iyala has solely carried out the music dwell. The phrase resonated a lot that graffiti artists tagged it throughout Oakland.

“We sat there and chopped it up, and in between every music I gave him my ideas or no matter questions it raised for every music,” Harshaw mentioned.

Harshaw’s commentary turned the interludes for 5 of the songs, together with “Jason’s Lyric.” That music is in regards to the loss of life of Financial institution$’s cousin Jason Roberson, who was shot by a gang member in 2017. The shooter was ultimately convicted of second-degree murder.

“One factor that was mind-blowing when my cousin Jason was murdered was seeing everybody at his funeral. It was my total household. Which means if I died at the moment, these can be all of the folks that may be at my funeral. It was like seeing your individual mortality,” Financial institution$ mentioned.

“Like many children from Oakland, I misplaced my first good friend to gun violence after I was about 15. I rap so I can inform the tales of others. That recognition can result in therapeutic.”

The album, he mentioned, was a cathartic expertise that gave him house to pour out emotions and ideas he’d had about rising up as a black man in Oakland, seeing his hometown change and coping with loss and grief.

“That is essentially the most I’ve ever been capable of say in a single mission,” mentioned Financial institution$. “It was liberating and therapeutic.”

“Being from Oakland, I personal a few of these tales.”

Underneath the energetic music and elegance of the Hyphy period, Oakland was tormented by violence and police brutality. In 2006, there have been 135 deaths in Oakland shootings.

In his e-book “On Loop: Black Sonic Politics of Oakland,” Alex Werth writes that “Oakland police got here to view hyphy as a proxy for hazard and crime” and used it as an excuse to assault younger black males.

“Even after I learn ‘The Riders Come Out at Night time,’ the e-book I am studying now, components of it impressed my writing,” Financial institution$ mentioned. “There are a number of tales in that e-book that I do know. However then to see how a lot I do not know: It is loopy to think about touring across the metropolis and never realizing all this stuff are taking place.”

The music “Greenhouse Fuel Chamber” tells the story of how Financial institution$, at age 19, was hanging out in a automobile with pals and smoking weed however was harassed by Oakland law enforcement officials, echoing the episodes advised within the e-book.

“They took us out of the automobile and searched us,” Financial institution$ mentioned. “Again then, there was no social media to doc visitors stops.”

That search, he mentioned, eternally modified the trajectory of certainly one of his pals who was within the automobile and finally ended up within the authorized system.

“Being from Oakland, I personal a few of these tales that folks do not learn about, however they’ll relate to by my lyrics,” Financial institution$ mentioned. “Once I inform these tales, you possibly can put this in any metropolis. Should you’re black in America, you possibly can perceive what I am speaking about. It is a part of our shared historical past. It goes manner past Oakland, however I can use Oakland as a backdrop.”

Financial institution$ is already considering of concepts about methods to carry out the music from “East Bay Occasions” in ways in which make sense for the town he loves.

“I feel exterior the field the place I can carry out,” Financial institution$ mentioned. “It won’t be one thing that exists. I simply attempt to be a part of the group, simply come over and do a free present on the lake or one thing.”